Developing a relationship-based self-reflection rubric to strengthen early childhood family engagement

Abstract Information: Throughout federally funded Head Start classrooms nationwide, analysis of the initiative’s family service worker position and practices has yet to be recorded. Like family service workers, Michigan’s state-funded pilot preschool program for low-income three-year-olds includes dedicated family liaisons. These positions are meant to support families’ wellbeing and engagement in their child’s program, and it is fluid by nature to meet the needs of students and their families in different regions with unique demographics, characteristics, and access to resources. While family liaisons alike require flexibility to bridge families with program staff and outside communities, we as the program’s evaluators were asked by the program’s supervisors to establish clearer, more consistent expectations. The lack of specific job functions and expectations have created challenges in determining the required hours and the proper staffing for the work. Moreover, the program lacked an evaluation tool for position, preventing data collection and assessment around effective practices and how they may lead to desirable outcomes such as higher family engagement, increased family support and healthy child development. Our current literature review has suggested that the existing guidelines for family liaison practices often lack empirical data to support their recommendations. Possible difficulties surrounding data collection include existing tools being too long for practical use, being disconnected from the lived experiences of early childhood educators, or practitioners not having enough intention and/or infrastructure to collect and analyze data. Over the past five months, we collaborated with family liaisons and their administrators at the program- and state-level to create a position-specific self-evaluation tool. The evaluators engaged with these community partners to propose best practices and extensively exchange feedback on the rubric’s development. Three themes arose that captures family liaisons’ work: relationship building with families, family support and advocacy, and program team collaboration. The rubric’s content is specific to the experiences and goals of family liaisons, recognizing their existing expertise as family engagement professionals and their non-teaching, non-administrative roles. The tool’s applicability will be measured through pre- and post-test usage by family liaison during and at the end of the 2023-2024 program period. Family liaisons will complete the brief 10-item assessment and share their practices for each indicator with the evaluators. Family members of the program participants will receive a survey with items mirroring the Family Liaison Self-Reflection Rubric to compare family liaisons’ and serving families’ views of their ongoing relationships and supports. As family empowerment and advocacy continues to be central to conversations around educational equity, establishing best practices for early childhood family support professionals will help codify expectations for the position and the foundation for future professional development for family engagement specialists across early childhood education. The end-product, a self-assessment rubric for family liaisons, can encourage family liaisons to further develop and track their growing capacity, increase program management efficiency and allow data collection.